Jaffe: How to Achieve the American Dream

7/5/2013 11:07AM

As the nation celebrates its birthday and the people live out a slice of the proverbial American dream — a good life, spent enjoying prosperity with friends and family — it’s a good time to see just how and why that vision looks different now than for generations past. Chuck Jaffe joins MoneyBeat.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... ay ay mm mm ... we celebrated ... yesterday ... many of us that the four-day holiday weekend ... we'll see ... longer working ... for many of you have to say the forty weekend ... so it's a good time to step back step back ... consider what achieving the American dream means now ... and how to get it MarketWatch's Chuck Jaffe joins us today from Boston ... shot carried on working for few minutes early ... the alleys aluminum I'm not quite getting it and uninterrupted four-day weekend ... for work is concerned I liked the frosting is good for our viewers ... plus took away a company there and think about ... is a good time take a step back ... what is it mean the American dream what does it mean these days to ... well I think that that's a big part of is that the American dream has changed ... meaning use to be if you go walk out a new work hard you will achieve success so you have a good career in a good house and everything else ... and I think looking to go away ... you know my job there's no guarantees about looking the unemployment rate etc the housing market is terrible so you know I've got a good house maybe I can sell for what I wanted to ... all these other sorts of things I think the American dream is changing now maybe it's changing ... because the people who like five to all the time are also getting older ... and at least they've got the house or what have you ... or maybe it's changing because of the big economic picture but one way or the other ... if you want to achieve the American dream for your version of it ... you first have to define what it is and ... what I've come to realize is that ... my parents who moved to this country their version of the American dream ... gift for my own and mine is differ probably that was ten or fifteen years ago ... yes I think ... look is definitely changing there's no doubt about this different from what ... my parents had a different American to also ... post about how you can achieve it done a good fall break it you break it down a couple of steps ... to run through some of them ... and the first was simply defining what it is for ... yet you know that the big thing for a lot of people is this a while ago when the American dream in U S Commodity is ... and they don't have an answer for you so you have to define your version what is your ideal lifestyle one is you say ... this is that I've maybe I can be comparable I can do whatever ... in a lot of people ... it's some sense of what's on security ... it's not ... so much the cake and I go often achieve this or get this are ... reached this level of success it's much more after the financial crisis of two thousand and eight ... about ... having comparably for the rest of my days without work ... or whatever it's ... not to say OK ... it was going up and in for example its living out your days comparably with no worries then you need to say what we need to do to achieve that because ... it's one thing to say here's my story ... it's the next to say I went right from dream into reality and that's really what we're trying to do it ... right I think it's also might mean ... recalibrating how you get the really good so the getting ... used to be pretty simple right you work hard ... save money he'll get that ... that doesn't happen I knew that all I ... know ... I change the whole generation of people for our have worked for decades and ... he'll dotcom boom the housing bust ... day had seen these dreams ... dashed time and time again ... you to do things differently now ... yes you do and and I think a lot of anime just take a look for example in our business our business the media and think about how the media has changed over the last twenty years with the advent of the International and other sorts of things ... and say okay great ... you have a job if you well you may want to do for the rest of your life ... but in an upbeat year for the rest your life and that's ... just because of the changing technology ... when the economy and everything else I think that's a huge part of what people need to be looking at ... if your in your forties and fifties a new love what you do when you think ... I can do this for the rest of my life ... that the next question as to the will I be able to do this for the rest of my life will I ... have a job ... will the economy allow me to do it ... and if you can't answer that yes strongly opinionated bill that and you're planning is well ... yes ... the alliance with them a certain frugality that we have not had the ... last twenty thirty years it grew out of it ... does it involve and is becoming more frugal ... well ... yes and no I think it becomes that when you think about the American dream from the standpoint of you can achieve anything ... I think for a lot of people ... their idea of achieving anything ... was basically tied up in material things as if I have this is a ... symbol of my success I may get lanai to XR I've ... achieved it when I can try this time color ... I think the eyes ... of society we've gotten a little bit more mature and while we still have a lot of what go out and ... and ... inspired the desire to possess as ... one both companies to ... describe it ... I think ... a lot of folks can sit there and say look I've that the financial crisis that scared of the G been cheaper sodomy ... it made me think ... may not have a secure retirement doesn't just wants my retirement nest egg it cut in half ... I don't need to go by the next great day ... so I'm not sure that the frugality came first ... I think that frugality came after ... people sat there and said hey I can do everything right ... and the American dream might still be outside of my reach ... because that's the world we live in ... yet that actually I thought to be ... from sobering stuff but ... good and necessary ... we all that on MarketWatch dot com